8/13/2019 THE EVIL OF ABORTION
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Vol. INo. 10 April2002The Evit of Abortion
yeraFaithlordis**",,,**?f"l#:,*jt#;:il*X*m#i 2k,o,f,
**,*o*pr*Lireorgmi.sdion in the US.A. dedicated to upholding tlw
Orthodox Clristianfaitla and educating Orthodox Clristitu abo*
abortione*hanasia, cloning stem cell and other medical research,
suicide, child abase, and other assaults on the dignity of lwnor
life.
I have a small ghost who follows me everywhere.He changes.
Sometimes he's an infang sometimes a tod-dlero sometimes --
fitostly now -- he's a teenage boy.I was thirf)'-four when I killed
my child. If I hadallowed him to live, he would have been born in
Au-Sllst, just like his mother. There is not a mornent of mylife
that he is not with me. Our relationship haschanged. In the pa$ I
always saw him as my accuser ormy judge. Today, ffiy murdered child
is no longer myjudge, but a sad regretful ghosL whose smile I
haveneYer seen.
I was twenff-ofl weekspreglant. I had felt movement"There is no
easy "it was just apiece of tissue" argument for me.One more week,
and I would havebeen beyond the legal limit forabortion in the
state where I lived.There are many so-called"mitigating factors"
that led to mykilling my baby at twenty-oneweeks of life:Until
three days before theabortion, I did not know I waspreglant. I had
had three negativepregnancy tests and thought mygrowing stornach
was a tumoursimilar to those that had killedseveral in my family.
The rnove-ment I felt I dismissed as gas.Hanrng no idea of my
condition, Ihad contimled to smoke threepacks of cigarettes a day
andabuse alcohol and drugs, mostly methamphetamines. Iwas in a
dysfunctional abusive marriage and my babywas not conceived in love
- he was conceived in x-treme violence.I was going to leave out all
three of the above,but I have told you about them for a very
irnportant rea-son: The abortion indusg would cite any and all of
theabove as reason enough to kill my chil4 since they con-sider any
"inconvenierf" pregnancy abortablg an4 al-though mine rilas not
life threatening to me, it went frrbeyond "inconvenient." Those who
practice abortionwould have you believe that all three of these
frctorsabsolve rne of gurlt and make the murder of my childpufectly
all right, rathsr like the sxtraction of an irn-pacted wisdom
tooth, painful and regrettable and stres$-fuI, but totally
nscessary.Well meaning friends have all at one time or an-other
said things like this: "lryidl all the nicotine, alco-holo and
drugs, you would have had L seriously dam-
aged child; abortion was the kind thing to do,"oConsidering who
the father wff, the child could?ebeen a serial killer; better to
abort," "ft rilas the result ofa near rape in a violen abusive
marriage; better toabort." "You were forced into it by your crazy
ex whenyou were in a weakened condition; you're not responsi-ble
anyholry." "You did the best and only thing youcould do; get on
with your life.uI have to tell you my story, because if any
caseexemplifies a supposed guilt-free abortiotr, it is mine.I've
heard every ratidnaliration - every single one, Ihave lived behind
the feel good,wann and furzy walls of publicopinion, political
correctress, andconventional wisdom, and I amhere to tell you it is
all unmiti-gated, absolute nonsense.I believe that on a primal gut
levelwe all know really know - thatabortion is murder at its most
hor-rific. Telling ourselves that it isanything else is pure
denial. Allthe careful layers of makeup wsblend over it are for
naught. 'Weknow it for what it is. And thatpure soul knowldge
cannot beerased or eradicated by all the feelgood rationalizations
on earth.Self-hatred may be the wor$e sin?I know it is certainly
the woretfeeling. After I killed my baby,self-hatred became my
whole life.Subconsciously I thought suicideto be too easy an out
(much like the notion that lethalinjection is too easy a punishment
for many really brutal
rnurderers). So I did not kill my physical body as I hadkilled
my child; instead I committed emotional andspirinral suicide.I
created a whole new personalify, Since then, Ihave had
psychiatrists tell me that what I did was notunusual, very similar
to child abuse victimso who "split-oqn and become another pemonahfy
in order to dealwith the abuse. During the next seventeen years,
fherewere many tirnes when I literally did not know tlre ller-son
in the mirror. Self-hatred coloured my e,very wakingand sleeping
mornent. It was as if I had pwhed an in-visible self-desfisct
button.I divorced my husband only to enter into a disas'kous
marriage with a man I did not love, whom I knewto be totally
dependent and incapablo of honest worhand proceeded to allow myself
to be used by him andhis family for thirteen years. Deep inside, I
was son-
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10vinced I desened all of it. My self-worth had
totallydisappeared, All the things I had loved to do in my oldlife
were now ofHmits; I would not allow myself en-joyment. Drsamless
sleep was rny only respite, ffid itdid not come often. When I did
pray, it was a secretprayer: I prayed to die, to simply cease. f
beHeved in anafterlife, and I knew that hell ifself could not be
anyworse than the life I was experiencing.The pain would lie in
wait and ambush me at un-expected times. A scene on TV, I ptrsage
in a book -always about someone's missed chance at being amother. I
would be overcome by the kind of rackingsobs that are more like
spasms than crying. I wanted tojust lie down and go to sleep and
never get up. I lived inthis self-imposed hell for sixteen years.
Then, in 1997, aheart condition I'd had since childhood became
sud-denly worse, and I decided to move back to the EastCoast to
die. As always, I was last on my own priorityIist. My main reason
for the move was so that the leechI'd married would have a better
chance at getting workafter I was gone.Living again on the East
Coast and in the samestate where I'd had a happy youthwas like
sprinkling water on anearly dead plant. The totalchange in
environment createdthe first crack in my shell of self-hatred. I
slowly began to feel likeme again.In the fall of 1997 camethe went
that finally set me free.I was taken as a guest to the AllSaints
Greek Orthodox Church.Although in rny youth I had stud-ied nearly
cvery major religion, Ihad never entered an OrthodoxChristian
church. Suddenly, I was home. All the piecesof my life fell into
place. Although I really knew no onethere except my host, it was
undeniably my home. Itook instruction with my spiritual father for
the next tenmonths, and on August 28, 1998, 1 wns chrismated. Atthe
confession before my chrisrnationo I finally, afternearly two
decade of wandering in hell, laid down mybrnden. My spiritual
father, an Orthodox priest who cantrace his priesthood in a direct
line to the Apostles, inmuch the $ame ceremony performed in the
catacombsotraid his hand on my head ffi{ in Chrisfs name,
forgaverne of the murder of my child. I was free.Regaining my
self-love has led to my regainingsomething else that I thought was
lost forever. I haveentered into a loving relationship with the
most rryonder-ful man in the world, and I am truly blessed: I am
in-deed free, Which brings me to the re{Non I am tellingyou my
story. When I first began classes in the Ortho-dox religion, I read
everything I could about Orthodoxviews on everything. All that I
read said that OrtlrodoxChristians \ilere anti-abortion, I asked
when and wheredoes the local Orthodox Right-to-Life group meet.
Hugefaux pffi, vaguely akin to a loud burp at a sophisticated
The Voicecocktail party I am a very fast leamer; I never make
thesame social effor twice.I circled warily around the issue ffid,
by bits andpieces, I learned that the charitable organizations,
thefood festival committeeso the fund-raisers, were all
po-litically correct. Even the occasional weekend retre at atthe
monastery, as I was in the habit of doing, was justfine. But
abortion? n'It's no one's business and eachwoman's private choice;
Now, tell me again, which foodfestival committee are you joinin
8"Excuse me, but it is my business. It is not yourprivate choice to
kill your baby, an4 if I can persuadeyou not to comrnit the sLme,
awful, tife ruiningact thatI did, it is my duty to do so.There is a
huge echoing silence from the Ortho-dox Church on abortion.
Strange, but everyone whotells me that "ifs a woman's private
choice" is a motherand/or grandmother. .Perhaps they fear their
daughtersor granddaughters may be faced with a life
disruptingpregnancy and want an escape hatch.Im not asking you to
march in parades and waveplacards and sigr petitions or even to put
a bumpersticker on your mr. I can't do anyof those things. f am not
a plac-ard-waving-in-your-face activist.Here it is: The next time
anyone,even a dearly valued friend orfarnily rnember tells you,
"It's awoman's choice," don't say any-thing. Just glve them a copy
ofthis article. If reading this canmake one person even just
beginto reconsider their "Pro{hoice"position, I have succeeded.I
would grve my own life to beable to go back in time and allowmy
child to live. I cannot. I pray that your showingsomeooo - just one
person - this story will cause some-one to stop and reconsider
before they perform the samehorrible act that killed my child and
nearly killed me.I need no perfecg logical argunents. You know,in
your soul, that abortion is the murder ofyour baby. Inthe name af
2,A00 years of Orthodox Clristianity, I saynow, break your silence
and spealg not in parades anddemonstrations, but quietly, as you
are reading thisnow, one child of God at atime.
ORTHODOX CH RI sTIANs AREPRO.LIFEOrthodox Christians for Life,
PO Box 805, Melville, N.Y.117 47, U.S.A. ru,uu'w.oclife.orgFor
excellent articles on ssial and rnoral issues of theday from an
Orhodox Christian perspective, presentedby Father Hans Jacobse of
the Greek Orthodox Arch-diocese of America:
wwrrv.OrthodoryToday.orgFor Prelife issues in Australia - se the
web site ofthe NSW Right to Life Association: rww'nswrff.srg.au
